i'm up early. my temporary room-ates (CanadaBoy and CrazyCzech) are sleeping.  we partied last nite.  nothing too crazy like we normally do.

but for some reason, i'm wide awake.

going to the gym now.  and i'm fucking-A hungry!

Anyways coming back this year, I saw Step Up 2 in the plane. And Enchanted as well. The first I think had AWESOME dance moves with a corny storyline. The second didn't have anything memorable. I mean after I watched it i felt like I have wasted 2 hours of my life. I don't think awake is that interesting either. I just watched bits and pieces of it. Enough to know that his wife planned it all. But anyways if anyone asks I would say that Step Up 2 is a must watch. Can't keep your eyes off screen.

I studied day before yesterday then yesterday and today were days off. That's how it is with me. The worst part is that I can't  even maintain a schedule. Its pretty annoying when I don't get things done. But thats what happens with mommy and daddy ariund me.

I have another story coming in my mind...but most of my stories never make it out on paper thats because they are so corny and only have a beginning and a middle. I keep looking for a great end but it never shows up. Those that actually do make it on paper I'll try to post em up.

I started maintaining a diary to keep my mind off things hoping that it would better help me with studies. Lets see if a story comes up from that.

Well nothing more that I can write right now. I just wish I had a cat...my yearning for it is too great. until next time.

CHILL.

Reading Denis Johnson's Tree of Smoke right before turning out the lights at midnight did not help either, what with its scenes disturbing in so many ways.  My lips were so uncomfortably dry I simply had to get up to apply chapstick.  I sweated and shivered at the same time.  I heard my mom getting up, puttering around the kitchen, scrubbing the bathroom.  Was it already morning?  Had I slept and not noticed?  I checked my watch.  2 AM.

Two hours lying in the dark is a lot of time for thinking.  I thought about school, and recitals, and Facebook.  I thought about California, for no particular reason.  I thought about photos and parabolas.  I thought about the millenium.

I must have fallen asleep sometime, because at 10:11, I woke up and it was another day.

I always remember the time in Scotland, when I was in second grade, that the night passed quite literally in the blink of an eye.  I was lying curled up on my side, staring at the wall.  My squarish stuffed sheep was upside down and leaning against the wall.

What it felt like was a very slow blink, but that was it, that was a full night of slumber.  I closed my eyes and everything was dark and blue; I opened my eyes and everything was light and yellow.  I hadn't moved the rest of my body.  The sheep was in the exact same position.  It was a very strange sensation.

That was also the trip when I watched the Teletubbies during a solar eclipse, bought my first watch, and took a Swiss Army knife onto the plane.  Do you remember when that was still possible?

 Being deprived of sleep even for one night can make the brain unstable and prone to sudden shutdown, like a power failure- brief lapses that hover between sleep and wakefulness.

  It's as though it is both asleep and awake and they are switching between each other very rapidly, causing such disorientation in a sleep deprived person. Imagine your sitting in a room watching a movie with the lights on. In a stable or wakeful brain the light stay on all the time, where-as a sleep brain, the lights will suddenly go off and you've dozed off, unaware.

  The findings also suggest that people who are sleep deprived alterante between periods of near-normal brain function and dramatic lapses in attention and visual processing. Researchers did brain imaging studies on 24 adults who performed simple tasks involving visual attention when they were well rested and when they had missed a nights' sleep.

  The researchers used a type of brain imaging know as functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI, which measures blood flow in the brain.

  They found significant, momentary lapses in several areas of the brain, which seemed to frequently falter when the people were deprived of sleep, but when these same people were well rested. These people were doing tasks and trying to work very hard through their sleepiness, to remember what they had learned.

  These lapses seem to suggest that loss of sleep renders the brain incapable to fully fending off involuntary drive to sleep. The study also makes it clear how dangerous sleep deprivation can be while driving on a highway, when even a four-second lapse could lead to a major accident.

I can't sleep.
I'm horrible at sleeping.

My last boyfriend told me that I'd constantly toss in my sleep. One time, I was crying and he woke me up and I shoved him into a wall.
I'm a violent sleeper, I guess.
Or else it was just some sort of suppressed rage.

It's difficult to face, nightly, the fact that I can't ever seem to fit into a relative degree of normalcy all around.

I don't sleep normal hours.
I don't dream normal dreams.
I talk in my sleep.
For a while, I think I sleep-walked.
I snore (that's normal).
I've tossed myself out of bed before. I kick. I cry. I converse.
Once I woke up and couldn't remember if what I had dreamed about had been an actual experience.
I spent the day thinking, in terror, that my mother was dead.

it's 5 am and I'm still awake.

I started going to the gym in the evening because I thought it would help to relax me and help my mind wind down from the day.

I think I need to put my pillow case in the freezer again.

Sink to see peeps - Great news! now you can check us out on MTraks.com

Suntem în anul 2008. E greu de crezut că undeva în trecut se efectuau proceduri medicale complexe, provocatoare de durere, fără anestezie. Bineînţeles nu se taiau oamenii, dar totodată nu taieturile sunt cele mai dureroase şi cele mai dăunătoare. Prima înregistrare a anestezicului datează prin 1846, când un stomatolog din Boston i-a dat unui pacient să inhaleze eter, pentru a-i curma durerea.

Mai întâi să înţelegem cuvântul şi forma sa. Cuvantul anestezie vine din cuvântul grecesc anaisthesis (an = fără şi aisthesis = senzaţie). Cuvântul a fost pus la un loc de către un anume american Sir Oliver Wendell Holmes, şi a fost folosit pt prima oară într-o scrisoare scrisă de el către un anume William T.G. Morton (stomatologul de care vă vorbeam mai devreme).

Ce este anestezia?

Anestezia este o formă reversibilă de pierdere voita conştiinţei. Dar asta ştie toată lumea, toţi ştim că dacă ne-au anesteziat, am adormit. Păi nu e tocmai aşa. Anesteziile diferă în funcţie de necesităţi, şi de ce nu, de posibilităţi. Pentru o mai bună înţelegere.. să intrăm în detalii...

Anesteziile sunt de două feluri: anestezii care actionează în creier şi anestezii care acţionează în afara creierului. La rândul lor, astea două ramuri se împart în alte subramuri.. deci să intrăm şi mai adânc în detalii..

Anesteziile care acţionează în interiorul creierului se împart în:

1. Anestezie generală - o pierdere a conştiinţei prin administrarea de droguri. În cazul acestei anestezii pacientul este total rupt de realitate şi nimic nu îl poate trezi, nici măcar durerea extremă. În majoritatea cazurilor, pacienţii care sunt supuşi unei astfel de anestezii au nevoie de asistenţa aparatelor pentru a putea respira. Deşi în cele mai multe cazuri, acest tip de anestezie e indusă prin cale respiratorie, se poate induce si prin agenţi intravenoşi.

2.Analgezia - acest tip de anestezie pur şi simplu blochează senzaţia conştientă de durere.  Au fost cazuri în care pacienţii nu reuşeau să respire pe cont propriu.

3.Anxioliza - o formă blândă de anestezie, indusă prin droguri. Pacientul este oarecum conştient, deşi concentraţia, coordonarea şi memoria sunt drastic îngreunate. În ciuda celor menţionate, pacientul poate respira singurel, fără probleme.

Anesteziile care acţionează în afara creierului se împart în:

1. Anestezie regională - genul acesta de anestezie duce la pierderea senzaţiei de durere, şi relaxare musculară în diferite zone ale corpului. Până nu demult genul acesta de anestezie era indusă printr-o singură injecţie. Mai nou, însă, anestezia regională se induce prin administrare locală constantă sau intermitentă de anestezice locale, printr-un sistem de catetere.

La rândul ei anestezia regională se clasifică în anestezie spinală (care se face direct în canalul spinal) şi anestezie epidurală (se face în spaţiul din jurul canalului spinal). Anestezia epidurală este frecvent indusă femeilor aflate în travaliu.

2. Anestezie locală - este similară anesteziei regionale, numai că afectează zone mai reduse ale corpului.

Cum funcţionează anestezia?

Deşi suntem în anul 2008 şi anestezia se foloseşte de peste 150 de ani, încă nu se ştie exact cum funcţionează. O anestezie nu este indusă doar printr-un singur drog/sedativ/medicament, ci printr-o gamă mai largă, fiecare agent acţionând asupra a diferite arii. Anesteziile generale, de exemplu, sunt constituite din medicamente, care, pe rând, te paralizează, îţi blochează receptorii de durere, îţi blochează restul simţurilor şi în final te adoarme complet. Deşi sunt extrem de eficiente, statisticile arată, că la 700 de pacienţi, unul nu prinde decât paralizia. Pacientul acela are ocazia să simtă operaţia în toată splendoarea ei. Nu dau mai multe detalii.

Concluzii

Nu o înţelegem, dar profităm de ea din plin. E bine că a fost descoperită, e bine că o avem azi şi e bine că avem anestezişti care să se ocupe de noi cât suntem operaţi.

PS: Referitor la 1 caz din 700, vă recomand filmul Awake, film care ecranizează, fictiv, cazul unui pacient la care nu a prins anestezia cum trebuie.

To be continued...

Tired, yet quite alive at the same time.. Hmm it's one of those nights where i'm thinking about life and what my future holds.. My thoughts are on my baby.. Well my ex girlfriend..

I love her.. She loves me.. I guess it's my fault why we aren't going out anymore.. I hurt her by lying to her about meeting up with one of my ex's. We weren't going out then but we were still very close.. And was about to go out again.. I "flirted" with the ex that I met up with.. Got myself in a lot of strife!

Hmm just one of those nights where I really miss her.. I mean really really miss her.. I'm so tempted to pick up the phone but I can't.. It would only make matters worse.. I better give her some space

It's now 10:57pm - Hmm better head off soon..

I've wasted years blaming a lot of people and events for the moment when I tried to end everything. The truth was that I just couldn't take the emptiness. I couldn't take feeling like such a reprobate aberrant because I didn't fit in the way they wanted me to fit in. I felt so unlovable, so sick, so worthless because I couldn't fall in to the place where they told me God expected me to be. It wasn't drugs, it wasn't my time in the occult, it was my inability to cope, to be strong, to satisfy their expectations.

Maybe I shouldn't write these things. I know it makes people uncomfortable when we talk about the things that lurk beyond the cute and presentable, but I lived with and through these things, and I can't escape the aftermath by pretending that nothing ever happened.

I am marked by mental and emotional scar tissue that I pray does not become what identifies who I am, yet is the very thing that obsesses my thoughts. I wrestle with programming that finds a way to rear its ugly head at every moment I begin to feel set free. I see visions and dream dreams that pull me into places in time that I wish not to relive.

My thorn, my demon, my messenger which tempts me into the Darkness I have known. -There is not a moment that goes by that I don't see your faces. Not a moment passes without your scent. While I cannot blame you for who I am, or where I find myself, I still with much passion arbhor you for what you've done to this family. I can take responsibility for my actions, my faults, my failures, but it is your claim to innocence that sickens me and draws me to the edges of war.- I am weak. I am tempted to come in the name of the Enemy; to satisfy my lusts.

But that is just it. This concept that I could ever do what the words taught is impossible. The lie that I could ever bring anything to the table is simply that, an utter and c o m p l e t e lie. It is not by my will or desire that I rise to the Calling that God has for me. I am not equipped -I am not capable- to do what the words taught. It has nothing to do with me. Rather it has everything to do with Christ in me.

This brokenness is my Thorn. And for as long as the Lord wills, it shall remain, but in it I have the hope and promise that the Lord is my sufficiency; His strength is made perfect in my weakness. Every time I resist the depression, the anger, the desire to demand justice, it is through Christ. Every time I can put myself aside to reach out and love as I am called to love, it is through Christ. Every time I find the ability to forgive a little more, it is through Christ and not by my will.

By this Thorn I am given the eyes to see the reality of the Lord, the reality of His active involvement in my life, the reality of His Love, and the reality of His grace. And by this I am able, through the Spirit, to take another step -small though it may be. I am able to press forward, even when I have fallen back yet again. I am able to trust and lay my life down before the Father that He might use me as He wills. That He might empower and enable me to point the world to Him -even in my most broken of moments.

I am broken, and in this brokenness I have only one Hope: J E S U S  C H R I S T.

Hey we've just entered a super cool guy band contest on Yelp.com. If we win we get all sorts of stuff from Swinghouse recording studio and we'll play live on July 26 At the Swinghouse party. Keep your fingers crossed

Aunny D holding down the KTown borderline

Getting excited for Josh's Soundstage appearance?  Check out the fantastic bio, gallery, video and more at Soundstage.  You are in for a treat!!  Josh's Soundstage performance airs tomorrow.

Josh Groban belongs on stage. An internationally renowned performer who has sold more than 23 million albums worldwide, Groban has thrilled a legion of devoted fans with his powerful, flawless baritone and extraordinary stage presence.  The 27-year-old Los Angeles native first broke through in 2001 with his self-titled double-platinum debut, followed by 2003’s multi-platinum Closer, featuring the smash hit “You Raise Me Up,” and 2006’s double-platinum Awake.  In 2007, the Grammy-nominated star became the best-selling recording artist of the year thanks to sales of Awake and his blockbuster Christmas album, Noel – now the best-selling holiday album of all time.  Groban has recently released his third live DVD, entitled Awake Live, from which this special Soundstage presentation is taken.  The segment, filmed in front of 15,000 screaming fans at Salt Lake City’s Energy Solutions Arena during Groban’s 81-city Awake tour, includes electrifying versions of “You Are Loved (Don’t Give Up),” “Machine,” and “Awake.”

Josh Groban "Soundstage"

AWAKE LIVE ON PBS SOUNDSTAGE VIEWING TIMES 

Download Episode File

Awake Live in performances on PBS's "SOUNDSTAGE" coming this week, June 26-28!!  Soundstage will air selections from Josh's DVD filmed in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Get your best buds over and recorders ready to roll because "Awake Live" is just about the best concert of 2007 in our estimation and you will see up close and personal why Josh Groban was the best selling artist and had the best selling album of 2007 breaking all records.  Is there a voice out there today comparable? No way say the fans! Is there anyone cuter, more precious in personality or kindness?  Again, no way we say!  He is truly the darling of the fans from 3 to 100 and with his recent "InStyle" magazine feature as well as "People Magazine's" "Most Beautiful" and "Hottest Bachelors" -- you can see why!  So then, get set, get ready and enjoy the vocalist extraordanaire -- our Josh Groban!  Check your local PBS affiliate for viewing time in your area. 

P.S.  If you do not have his "Awake Live" DVD/CD...you are really missing a fantastic concert and  music and performance at its best!  This Soundstage performance will whet your appetite for more we are sure!  Check our posts here for more information on the DVD/CD.

P.S.S.  You can get lots of performance prep over at our JustJoshGroban and Reformedwomen YouTube sites if you are a new Josh Groban fan or just need a Josh fix!

My eyes open, I curl over and struggle to find the snooze button.  PRESS HERE, to sleep for 8 more minutes...

I just need a little more sleep.  Then I will be ready for the day...

7:06, 7:07, 7:08 then again... smooth melodies ring out.

My mind justifies, 'Just 8 more minutes...'  Instinctually, I reach out, PRESS HERE, ahhh quiet, peace and rest again.  My mind is quiet, my body is at rest, I am still...

Again, and again my robotic hand that retreats from the reality of time reaches out to PRESS HERE, to snooze, to rest, to ignore.

So I PRESS HERE to hide from the realities of what not yet is today.

The homeless man I see standing on the same corner again...  I PRESS HERE and snooze and escape from reality that the home I go to he does not even dream of, cause all he dreams of is a full stomach.

The single mother who tries to be everything she needs to be; provider, care giver, homemaker.  Who cries herself to sleep every night from the loneliness she feels from sleeping in an empty bed each night.  PRESS HERE says she can make it, life is hard but through hard work and persistence she can make right choices.

So what makes this morning different?

Today I will be AWAKE!

I will engage the full realities of the falleness of man.

I will be AWAKE,

to the creation that groans from abuse of consumption culture.

I will be AWAKE,

to the divisions that liter our families, churches and government.

I will be AWAKE,

to the reality of suffering, death, loneliness and depression.

I WILL BE ALIVE TODAY!

I will not PRESS HERE and sleep in the false notions of peace and quiet, amid non-reality, false truths and convenient excuses.

And that makes today different.

So when the alarm of life goes off around me today, I will choose wake up and engage.

Romans 13:11 And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.

I think it comes from the way my own parents retreated and kept us from participating in highly visible and highly trafficked events, games, play areas, etc. at an early age. By and large (with the exception of school -in which they had no choice, though there was always talk of homeschooling- and church) we were very isolated and fenced in. There was a fear in letting us get out of our little pen.

I missed out on a lot of milestones and experiences because of the over-zealous-protectiveness of my parents -my mother in particular-, and now I see myself repeating the same cycle. I stick very close to my little girl when we are around places with a lot of little children. I limit her interaction with other kids. Because of me -if I continue this path- she will be behind in basic social skills such as sharing, playing, appropriate interaction, etc.

Luckily for my little girl I am out to sea for most of the year and my wife is breaking out of her boundries and meeting up with new friends who have kids. My daughter is getting the opportunity to play with other children and learn how to interact with others her age (and younger) because I am away.

I h a t e this about me. I hate this part of me. I'm worried about taking my daughter to an upcoming command picnic because I know there are going to be other parents and kids around. This is a completely irrational and unreasonable fear. It is, however, a very real fear.

There must be a point where I have to learn to let go. Not let go as in to absolutely relinquish all boundaries, guidelines, rules, restrictions, etc., etc., but let go as in letting go of my training in order to allow my child to have a far better chance to grow up normal than I had. To let go so that she has the opportunity to learn to properly, and in a healthy way, interact with others. To grow up healthy and able to face the world. My siblings and I were lucky to escape with what social skills we did. That is not how I want my daughter to feel: as if she escaped with the social skills she gains.

I only hope that by the grace of God that I learn how (without being swallowed by a whale).

Over second and third cups flow matters of high finance, high state, common gossip and low comedy. Coffee is a social binder, a warmer of tongues, a soberer of minds, a stimulant of wit, a foiler of sleep if you want it so. From roadside mugs to the classic demi-tasse, it is the perfect democrat. ~Author Unknown

just love the simple yet elegant aroma of a cup of coffee... simply, it brightens my day and energize my body for the day's work... i would never trade nescafe coffee over any other brand of coffee...

i can consume at least 3 cups of it in a day... try it...

TRIVIA

1. The name coffee comes from the Arabic word qahwah, meaning wine, and not from the town of Kaffa, in Ethiopia (Abyssinia), as many writers have supposed.
2. There are twenty-four steps in the "Coffee Process".
3. The most severe punishment for drinking coffee was being sewn into a leather bag and tossed alive into the sea.
4. Pope Clement VIII was the first to baptize coffee and make it a true Christian beverage.

Even though the caffeine in coffee keeps you alert while you are awake, it doesn't always keep you from falling asleep when you are dead tired. Many people can drink several cups of coffee before bed and still fall asleep with no trouble at all. Others can't fall asleep after drinking even one cup of coffee before bedtime.

Though coffee is known for keeping you awake and alert, it can also cause a peaceful state of mind. A peaceful state of mind relaxes you, allowing you to fall asleep. It seems to depend on whether your body wants to fall asleep or stay awake. Even the ideas in a person's head seem to be a part of whether you sleep or stay awake. If people want to stay awake, they drink coffee labeled regular (coffee with caffeine). If people do not like the effects of caffeine or if they plan on going to sleep soon, they drink coffee labeled decaffeinated which means there is no caffeine in the coffee.

]]> http://fadingstar86.wordpress.com/?p=66 Mon, 16 Jun 2008 03:13:22 +0000 fadingstar86 http://fadingstar86.wordpress.com/?p=66 to the fucking other.

It is 3.51am and I am still awake. The birds are cheepin outside for some bizarre reason and the odds are it is unlikely I will get to sleep.

I still feel like shit and really want to sleep but every time I shut my eyes a zillion thoughts float through at once making it impossible. A million different scenarios of hundreds of different events some which have already happened and could have been done differently, some which haven't happened but possibly might and others which there is no chance in hell of them happening.

I don't get it.

If you can't sleep you're supposed to get up, I am sure I was told that or read it somewhere or both. There is not a hope in hell of me getting up. It's fucking freezing in this flat and under the duvet is snuggly and warm. Maybe had too much caffeine today. Then again I am pretty immune to caffeine in that it usually has very little effect on me. I did some filing today I guess I could shuffle some of it back towards the bed. The stuff that stil needs done that is and could continue doing it. I mean it's not like I am going to be disturbing anyone, flatmate hasn't been in since Tuesday and there doesn't seem to be the remotest chance of him being in before Wednesday night, however I might be surprised. That does not give those of you who know where I live an excuse to drop in on me unexpectedly though. Please no stalkers! I have enough to deal with.

It's funny how diiferent colours of LEDs shine brighter in the dark. Why isn't my alarm clock the brightest light? I mean the red LED thingy in it is like the dullest out of the three, followed by the orange standby light on my moniter then greatly outshone by the electric blue light on my digibox. I mean this thing could replace a fucking lighthouse, it practically omits the need for me to have electric lights in this room. I could get by with just it alone....well maybe not quite.

So I am sitting talking to myself in an empty chatroom...hmmm...a sure sign of social incompetance that one. Or just more so being an insociable git...or just an eejit who is awake at the complete wrong hours of the day.

Maybe I could go out in he garden and look at the birds. I don't even think it is dark outside. May need to put some proper trousers on top of my PJ bottoms though or else my toes might fall off, they're already freezing even under the duvet. Is there really any excuse for having a cigarette at 4am though? really?

I wish I had one of those CDs with like the soothing rainforest music on it. Maybe that would get me to sleep. Or maybe it would have me running to the loo with the sound of the waterfalls, or sitting picturing the birds and giving them all names and counting their feathers.

I could put the tv on but I'll put money on that it's just shit like "The simple life" or stuff that just encourages the thought to jump off a brige or walk in front of a bus. I mean really what is the point? and moreso why the hell do they get paid to make it???It's not like they don't have enough money already.

I could start on my Continuing Professional Development (CPD) folder but that is probably not a good use of my time as if it is incoherent I'll just have to do it again from scratch. However, it may indeed prove to be a good sleep aid reflecting on everything I have learned in the past four years at university.

lalala...oooh someone has joined me for a chat!! :) Funny thing being they're from Scotland too, must be something in the air!

Could the clock go any slower if it tried. Pretty much watching the numbers tick by so slowly I keep expecting it to stop and go backwards instead.

Anyway my shoulder is hurting like a bitch sitting in bed typing and I am sure the laptop could overheat sitting on the mattress and that would be no good at all and ruin all chance of entertaining myself in my awakeness.

So long for now xx